Do you believe in Evolution?

[mcshroom]

So your argument is that because in pre-scientific days people believed things that hadn't been tested experimentally, and often turned out to be wrong when they were, then it follows that current scientific theories that have been verified experimentally, will also turn out to be just as wrong? So aeroplanes will suddenly fall out of the sky? Newton's Laws will stop being a good predictor of the motion of moving bodies? Where exactly is the logic?

Just to be pedantic Newton's Laws are a model that is a good guide in most situations but are not in others, that is why Einstein revised them. As it is almost every situation that could be experienced by humans falls in the area where the Newtonian model fits closely enough for it to be very useful. Also it's like the image of an atom as a nucleus with electrons spinning round it in set orbits (electrons are not restricted to set orbits, and all we can do is suggest orbitals where the electron is most probably found)

 

[mark barker]

So your argument is that because in pre-scientific days people believed things that hadn't been tested experimentally, and often turned out to be wrong when they were, then it follows that current scientific theories that have been verified experimentally, will also turn out to be just as wrong? So aeroplanes will suddenly fall out of the sky? Newton's Laws will stop being a good predictor of the motion of moving bodies? Where exactly is the logic?

Erm... No! Planes can fly, it doesn't take a scientist to work that out. Evolution hasn't been proven by any scientist, as agreed by most of the previous posters that do believe in evolution. Its a theory that can't be proven by looking to the past, because we can't say with 100% certainty what happened at any given time. So to believe in evolution I've got to take the word of scientists, a group of individuals that are prone to getting things wrong.

 

[marinyork]

Erm... No! Planes can fly, it doesn't take a scientist to work that out. Evolution hasn't been proven by any scientist, as agreed by most of the previous posters that do believe in evolution. Its a theory that can't be proven by looking to the past, because we can't say with 100% certainty what happened at any given time. So to believe in evolution I've got to take the word of scientists, a group of individuals that are prone to getting things wrong.

As someone very clever once said, science is the study of uncertainty.

You don't have to take the word of scientists, you can go and look stuff up for yourself, it just may take a long time.

As for the bit about getting things wrong, I refer you to my previous quote!

 

[mangaman]

Er, no. No one's saying that you can't have your god if you need it. You miss the point somewhat. It's the brainwashing of children I have a problem with. Adults forcing their kids into whichever religious mumbo jumbo (especially the rituals surrounded by terrible fears and intimidation) their parents before subjected them to, is an abuse of trust and a kind of mental rather than physical abuse (though we all know lots of religions are also very keen on mutilating children for their own bonkers superstitions). I'd ban indoctrinating children with religious mumbo jumbo until they are old enough to make up their own minds and make their own choices in life. If they get to 18 and decide to put on a frock, have the ends of their knobs chopped off (depending on which flavour of religious cobblers they choose) and tell us normal folk how we should be living our lives then go for it. No one's stopping you.

As for religious organisations, if I've got this right, you have to be an Xtian organisation to do any good in the world. I'm sure folks like Amnesty the WWF and Greenpeace among others will be very interested to hear it. Of course some religious organisations do some good. But it always comes with a price- i.e. buy into our mumbo jumbo and then we'll help you. And frankly I'd be pressed to see what good if any missionaries have ever done apart from brainwash the locals with hogwash. What's wrong with a bit of compassion and humanity without all the god bo**ocks- it is possible you know!
And as I said above, no one's telling you what to or what not to believe. This is the classic Xtian ploy of crying persecution whenever someone points out that religion may in fact be a load of old cobblers.

I think you're somewhat overplaying the terribleness of religion for most children.

My mother was mildy Christain (Scottish Presbyterian - recently "losing her religion" as REM would say.

My Dad - an apathetic atheist.

Me (and my sister and brother) - went to church/Sunday school until teens.

By ten we had a good understanding of the bible. We all stopped going as we didn't believe in God

My sister has done the same with her children - they are now having doubts and not going to church.

My parents and sister were sensible enough to let us make our own minds up - but it takes a certain amount of learning as a child. I feel much more comfortable as an atheist having been brought up and educated in Chritianity. Otherwise how would I know I wasn't missing something?

I suspect most people of all faiths are following our path - initial education in their religion / followed by a withdrawal into secularism.

Banning teaching children the Bible or the Quran makes as much sense as baning "The Origin Of Species". ie none.

People should be allowed the tools to decide their futures

 

[marinyork]

I think you're somewhat overplaying the terribleness of religion for most children.

He's overdoing the rhetoric perhaps in a very big way, as Dawkins does famously. I don't think the core of the message is that far wrong though and it is one of those debates where it sadly matters more how you say things than what you say. Whether the state should teach RE (as opposed to faith schools which I think are wrong) though I think is a more problematic question. I think that when religious people talk on the subject of bringing up their children they will often feel threatened and use language that is overcooking the rhetoric to annoy the other side and even quote stuff they don't particularly believe in - where later they'll say much more reasonable things.

I had a similar but more extreme upbringing to you - my mother was heavily religious and father agnostic or on the more radical ends of christianity. I don't find it makes me any more comfortable or feel enriched, I just think it was a monumental waste of time. I would have wondered about the same things ultimately anyway (I did when I was a child) so I don't see why people are so big on teaching all this stuff. I would say that your religious experiences are at the more tame end of the scale, they may be somewhere around average or typical in the sense of people ticking religions in the census/on their medical notes and the outcomes similar. For people with properly religious parents I wouldn't say it is like that. The vast majority of those brought up in the church I went to are Christians now.

Banning teaching children the Bible or the Quran makes as much sense as baning "The Origin Of Species". ie none.

People should be allowed the tools to decide their futures

Children cannot be religious or certainly have faith in the sense that adults talk about, so I'd say there is actually a case for banning teaching children the Bible. It is simply well meaning intellectual dishonesty to pretend that children can have religions, I understand why people do it, but it's still wrong, even for the very nice reasons people quote (and they are very nice and well meaning reasons sometimes). I'm all for people being allowed the tools to decide their futures - away from unfair influences and when the time is right, towards adulthood and on their own terms. That said some of this stuff pales into insignificance compared to modern 'faith schools'.

 

[benb]

Erm... No! Planes can fly, it doesn't take a scientist to work that out. Evolution hasn't been proven by any scientist, as agreed by most of the previous posters that do believe in evolution. Its a theory that can't be proven by looking to the past, because we can't say with 100% certainty what happened at any given time. So to believe in evolution I've got to take the word of scientists, a group of individuals that are prone to getting things wrong.

Absolute rubbish. It may not take a scientist to look at a plane and say "oh look, it's flying", but it most certainly took scientists (and engineers) to develop modern planes.

Evolution is as well supported by the evidence as any modern scientific theory. If you have something specific where you think it falls short, please feel free to post it.

 

[mark barker]

Absolute rubbish. It may not take a scientist to look at a plane and say "oh look, it's flying", but it most certainly took scientists (and engineers) to develop modern planes.

My point was I don't need a scientist to tell me that planes can fly, I can see that quite happily for myself. I don't dispute that scientists do accomplish some things, but they also fail miserably quite often too. How many times have we heard that the cure for cancer is "just a couple of years away"? Still haven't seen the evidence of cancer being wiped out.

Evolution is as well supported by the evidence as any modern scientific theory. If you have something specific where you think it falls short, please feel free to post it.

Supported by theory. Not fact. I don't claim to be an expert on evolution (tbh I really don't care where we came from or why), but just because a bunch of scientists tell me that we're all mutants that started off as swamp dwellers (please feel free to replace swamp dweller with whatever organism you prefer) doesn't mean I have to believe it.

 

[darkstar]

My point was I don't need a scientist to tell me that planes can fly, I can see that quite happily for myself. I don't dispute that scientists do accomplish some things, but they also fail miserably quite often too. How many times have we heard that the cure for cancer is "just a couple of years away"? Still haven't seen the evidence of cancer being wiped out.

Supported by theory. Not fact. I don't claim to be an expert on evolution (tbh I really don't care where we came from or why), but just because a bunch of scientists tell me that we're all mutants that started off as swamp dwellers (please feel free to replace swamp dweller with whatever organism you prefer) doesn't mean I have to believe it.

Sorry Mark, but you are well out of your depth here. There is overwhelming evidence for Evolution, it's not just a case of 'a bunch of scientists' telling us that 'we're all mutants that started off as swamp dwellers'...

 

[mark barker]

Sorry Mark, but you are well out of your depth here.

I think I mentioned that before. And surely that is a big part of this discussion? I know very little about evolution, and I'm quite happy that way. However it would seem that from previous comments on this thread that some see this as a sign of stupidity or ignorance. I'd suggest its neither, and that members with that view are no different to the religious folks that are unwilling to accept that their gods are just stories with no proof to back them up.

 

[benb]

My point was I don't need a scientist to tell me that planes can fly, I can see that quite happily for myself. I don't dispute that scientists do accomplish some things, but they also fail miserably quite often too. How many times have we heard that the cure for cancer is "just a couple of years away"? Still haven't seen the evidence of cancer being wiped out.

Supported by theory. Not fact. I don't claim to be an expert on evolution (tbh I really don't care where we came from or why), but just because a bunch of scientists tell me that we're all mutants that started off as swamp dwellers (please feel free to replace swamp dweller with whatever organism you prefer) doesn't mean I have to believe it.

You really are talking crap. Can you point me to the peer reviewed paper that claimed that the cure for cancer was a couple of years away? No, because it doesn't exist, and no scientists would put it in those terms (media health and science reporting is woeful, and they do frequently exaggerate and distort the actual claims that scientists make).

And survival rates for cancer are significantly better than they were 50 years ago. Thanks to scientists.

You also clearly haven't the first idea about the scientific method, what is meant by the term theory, in a scientific context.

A scientific theory does not mean that it is a hunch, a guess, made up, or speculative. It means that it is an accurate model or explanation, accounting for all of the known facts at the time, and well supported by the evidence. It means that it also makes testable predictions.

You can choose not to believe that we are all "mutants that started off as swamp dwellers" (your choice of phasing there shows is rather bizarrely pejorative BTW), but it's no different from choosing to believe that the Earth is flat.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I think I mentioned that before. And surely that is a big part of this discussion? I know very little about evolution, and I'm quite happy that way.

So, does that mean you are unwilling to learn on your own, or will actively ignore facts that are presented to you too?

However it would seem that from previous comments on this thread that some see this as a sign of stupidity or ignorance.

It is ignorance (look up the definition of the word). We are all ignorant in different areas. Now there are several kinds of ignorance.

There's the open kind - e.g. 'I don't know because I have never heard of this before, but now I have heard of it, I am willing to learn.'

There's the closed kind - e.g. 'I don't know about it, and I don't care'

And then there's the aggressive kind, e.g. 'I don't know about it, but I am going to insist on my opinion anyway'.

I'd suggest its neither, and that members with that view are no different to the religious folks that are unwilling to accept that their gods are just stories with no proof to back them up.

They aren't. They just fall into the second or third category of ignorance.

Some people do not like to be told that there are things that they don't know, or people who know better than them. They take it as an attack on their sense of themselves. I'd suggest that if you want to learn anything, you have to get over this pretty quickly. I meet so many people working in universities who have far wider and deeper knowledge than me in so many areas. I don't force my opinion about their subject on them, I accept that they have something to teach me. And if I have no time to learn what they have to offer, I just have to accept that there are things I don't know and can't know. I certainly don't fill that gap with some belief about it which I will insist on even to people who know better, or try to tell them that what they know is somehow equivalent to my ignorant belief.

 

[marinyork]

My point was I don't need a scientist to tell me that planes can fly, I can see that quite happily for myself. I don't dispute that scientists do accomplish some things, but they also fail miserably quite often too. How many times have we heard that the cure for cancer is "just a couple of years away"? Still haven't seen the evidence of cancer being wiped out.

Supported by theory. Not fact. I don't claim to be an expert on evolution (tbh I really don't care where we came from or why), but just because a bunch of scientists tell me that we're all mutants that started off as swamp dwellers (please feel free to replace swamp dweller with whatever organism you prefer) doesn't mean I have to believe it.

You seem to have a problem with the language and as is common the word fact. Here's one view on it by the late Stephen Jay Gould written quite a while ago called Evolution as Fact and Theory . Don't like fact? Use some preamble instead, I think it's much easier using phrases people involved in the work understand rather than typing out lengthy pieces every time.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

You seem to have a problem with the language and as is common the word fact. Here's one view on it by the late Stephen Jay Gould written quite a while ago called Evolution as Fact and Theory . Don't like fact? Use some preamble instead, I think it's much easier using phrases people involved in the work understand rather than typing out lengthy pieces every time.

That's a nice essay. His gentleness and ability to communicate without aggression is sorely missed.

 

[jonesy]

Just to be pedantic Newton's Laws are a model that is a good guide in most situations but are not in others, that is why Einstein revised them. As it is almost every situation that could be experienced by humans falls in the area where the Newtonian model fits closely enough for it to be very useful. Also it's like the image of an atom as a nucleus with electrons spinning round it in set orbits (electrons are not restricted to set orbits, and all we can do is suggest orbitals where the electron is most probably found)

Yes, I know that, you don't need to be pedantic! That's why I said a "good guide"! There's a widespread misunderstanding amongst those like mark baker who criticise science to the effect that new scientific theories completely replace previous ones, that they prove them to be wrong. So 'Einstein proved Newton to be wrong' is an argument that I've seen before. But that's not really the case, is it, Newton's laws still apply under most circumstances and this can be verified experimentally, the new theory improves, and builds on what went before, it doesn't falsify it.

 

[jonesy]

Erm... No! Planes can fly, it doesn't take a scientist to work that out. Evolution hasn't been proven by any scientist, as agreed by most of the previous posters that do believe in evolution. Its a theory that can't be proven by looking to the past, because we can't say with 100% certainty what happened at any given time. So to believe in evolution I've got to take the word of scientists, a group of individuals that are prone to getting things wrong.

You were making an argument that we can't trust scientific theories because in the past non-scientific beliefs have been proven wrong. That simply isn't a logical argument.